Why The `Have-nots` Lose Ground

October 30, 1988|By Steve Kerch and J. Linn Allen.

On a chilly October evening, 300 candle-carrying demonstrators are circling outside Chicago`s City Hall. They are a diverse group, representing the homeless, the working poor, neighborhood development organizations and community activists.

Their plea is simple: We need affordable housing now.

On a warm September morning, 1,670 people are lined up at the Du Page County Fairgrounds, many steaming mad about the ``mob scene`` around them. They have camped out overnight in one of the country`s wealthiest counties simply to put their names on a list so that they might eventually receive one of about 200 federal rent subsidies available in Du Page this year.

In dozens of locations across the country, other lines have formed. When $70,000 or $80,000 townhouses have gone on sale in the old New Jersey suburbs of New York City or the new communities of Southern California, home builders were forced to hold lotteries to determine who among the hundreds of potential buyers would get a chance at one of a few dozen units.

And in Washington, D.C., a congressionally created National Housing Task Force tries to make sense of it all. If the promise of the American Dream is a ``decent home and a suitable living environment,`` then ``for millions of our families, we have not only fallen short but are losing ground.``

From the inner city streets of Chicago to the corridors of power in Washington, it has become clear that this nation faces a crisis in affordable housing.

``America is increasingly becoming a nation of housing haves and have-nots,`` concluded William Apgar and H. James Brown, co-authors of a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University called ``The State of the Nation`s Housing 1988.``

``While the majority of American homeowners are well housed and have significant equity in their homes, the prosperity of these homeowners does not reflect the plight of the nation`s growing number of low- and moderate-income households,`` Apgar and Brown said.

When Major Jenkins, a 72-year-old retired factory worker, moves back next spring to the Harold Washington SRO, a single-room occupancy hotel under renovation on North Sheridan Road, he will pay exactly one-third of his income in rent-the percentage that experts say divides affordable from unaffordable. Jenkins is one of the lucky ones, a housing ``have.`` The Lakefront SRO Corp., redevelopers of the Harold Washington-named in honor of the late mayor because of his commitment to affordable housing-have secured precious U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development Section 8 subsidies for the project.

The subsidies allow Jenkins to pay just $165 of his $495 per month social security income to the landlord. Without the subsidies and without innovative financing from the private sector, a single room at the Harold Washington would have to rent for $337 a month.

``If I had to pay, I`d just go and pay,`` said Jenkins, a retired factory worker with glaucoma who has lived in North Side SROs a good part of his life. ``I`m an old farmer from Mississippi. I can get by `cause I can do my own cooking.``

``I don`t know too much `cause I don`t get around anymore with my eyesight and all, but everyone I hear tell says they want high money for these places these days,`` he said.

Although the affordable housing crisis hits hardest at those with the lowest incomes, it is taking a substantial toll on many other segments of American society. The problem is not confined to the city either: It has spread to the suburbs and rural communities as well.

``Housing is not just a problem for the poor. It`s a problem for school teachers, policemen, clerks and entry-level professionals,`` said Donald Terner, president of the Bridge Corp., a San Francisco area not-for-profit developer of low- and moderate-income housing.

Of particular concern is the fact that younger families, burdened with high rents, cannot save for downpayments on homes. In sharp contrast to a generation ago when the American Dream of homeownership was within easy reach, today`s young families are becoming the housing ``have-nots.``

Kitty Snyder, 36, a pianist, her husband Rick, a composer and keyboardist, and one-year-old son Joey are residents of the city`s Lake View neighborhood on the city`s North Side. The couple pays $540 per month for a three-bedroom apartment that has plumbing leaks, cracking plaster, bad wiring and locks that need replacing.

With an income of $20,000 to $25,000 a year, the Snyders` rent would be considered affordable by the slimmest of margins. But they can save money only if nothing goes wrong or there are no major bills, like those for Joey`s birth, which ate up their entire $14,000 in savings.

``We would love to stop kissing the money goodbye every month,`` Kitty Snyder said. ``A year after we moved in (five years ago), we saw a little house for sale on Wellington. It was not very big, but cute, with a one-car garage and a small yard, across the street from a factory.``